How research has influenced my plan: My research has influenced my planning in this project especially, and more so than any of my other projects, I feel. I think because I am determined to create exactly what I can see in my head and am definitely paying more attention to the detail and continuity of my short films visuals. Many parts of my idea changed as I got further into my research, but most of all, I did essentially change the full product. I initially wanted to create a film trailer and horror campaign, like I had done for last years FMP, but instead decided I wanted to put more of my creative skills to use, and my editing and camera work, which I feel have improved drastically over the past year, and create a shot film instead. This, I think, was the best decision I made throughout all of me research and planning, but below are some other changes I made that I think was due to my research and the way it changed and evolved within my idea.
As shown through my blogs, I did quite a bit of research, at the very beginning of my research stages, into Satanism, the Church of Satan and cults in general. I was pretty sure this was going to be the main topic of my film, and although in some ways it is, I have definitely strayed from the idea of Satanism. As mentioned in a few of my blogs discussing this topic, I went into this project viewing Satanism as something that, through my research, I now know it is not; and so have decided to focus more on the pop culture/media portrayal of Satanism.
I have also made changes to my initial idea such as wanting to include more of the ‘supernatural’ or ‘paranormal’ elements to this short film, whereas to begin with I was defiantly leaning more towards the ‘slasher’ genre. Because, initially, I was leaning towards the slasher genre, I intended to do some research on films like Saw, which I did, but with a very different idea in mind. To begin with I was planning on creating something extremely gory, inspired by the infamous Saw films, but as my idea progressed I decided that I wanted to do less gore but still some more detailed SFX. Now that I am planning on using elements of the paranormal sub-genre in my short film, this meant I had to do some research and planning into how I would connect the ideas of ‘spirits’ and cults in my short film, and making the plot cohesive and making sure it flows nicely so that there is no confusion for the audience as to what is going on. Through research I eventually decide that Tarot cards may be a great way of tying in all these elements into the plot.
Moving onto planning: Now that I have started moving onto planning, this means I am able to look through my research and my ideas and begin to actually bring my short film to life. As I am doing a short film, with no dialog, I am going to be planning my visuals in much more detail that I ever have done in other projects. Last year was very much a ‘wing it’ kind of project and, although I am still happy with how it came out, I don’t think it accurately represents what I am capable of in terms of being a Director, a Makeup Artist, a Cameraman or an Editor. Hopefully through my planning this time around I can prove the skills I have gained over the last 2 years of this course and create a very impressive and technically brilliant short film.
Problem solving: Although I have great ideas and, if no issues had occurred, I would definitely be on track and confident that I am, however, the last week and a half has been painful to say the least. As I am very much aware, these two weeks over easter are, as Andrew put it, “make or break” in terms of getting the distinction I want and so that on its own has made me a little frantic and stressed; but that is not all I have had to tackle this past week and a half. First of all my laptop, which is my most prize possession and has been a life saver throughout my time at college, broke. That alone was so difficult to deal with as I had a lot of work on there such as my half done treatment and shot list etc. However annoying that was, and it really was, I knew I was coming back home over half term where I could use the work computer or dads laptop, or so I thought. I got home on Friday night and was greeted with the news that all our wifi had shut down, not only that but because dad couldn’t do his work here due to no wifi, he headed back to Leyland, which left me only with the work computer that I obviously had to share with work. Sharing the computer would have been fine, but its half term, half term with no wifi, half term, with no wifi, and a business repot that desperately needed doing, which meant the time I could use this computer to even draft my work became even shorter.
However stressful this has all been, I have managed it, and although I do feel slightly behind still, I am just trying to work my hardest and post when we get a bar or two of signal. Lets be honest, this was never going to be a stress-free project regardless, but what can you do?
This next picture includes my proposed evaluation methods, similar to many of my other projects – for example, ‘engaging an audience’ and my year 1 FMP – the evaluation for this project will be based on audience response and engagement. Because of this I would most likely find it beneficial to look through my audience feedback from last year and the responses I got to help me decide what kind of response I am looking for this year and how to achieve this. My evaluation will be measured through Instagram analytics (as Instagram is where I plan on presenting a lot of my work), as well as questionnaires and focus groups etc. Here is also some proposed research sources, while writing this I did not for certain know what I would use for my research but did have a few ideas of subjects and topics I would like to look at and so put in a few research links that may be useful for looking into these subject matters more in depth. 
Emily Bennett 